Professor Koniphorus Swamp

A famous Muggle consulting detective (suspected y some of us to have actually been a wizard) once directed the attention of his decidedly Muggle friend to the curious incident of the dog in the night-time. When the friend observed that the dog did nothing in the night-time, the detective remarked… Read More

In the first ten years that Harry Potter lived with the Dursleys, his Aunt Petunia never uttered a word to him about the magic ability of his mother, her sister Lily. When the truth finally comes out about his parents, this is the first statement Petunia makes about magic, and it must have summed up what in her mind were… Read More

Every living thing has genes that largely determine its appearance. Humans (magical or Muggle) look like humans because they have human genes; dogs look like dogs because they have dog genes; cats look like cats because they have cat genes. The set of genes that make up an individual person or dog… Read More

I read with interest the essay “Magic, Genes, and Pure Blood,” by glamourousgeek, being myself involved in research into the complex inheritance of magic, but I must take exception to the science expressed within it.[*] Even if the magic trait is inherited through Mendelian genetics (which does not quite… Read More